Jonah’s God (5)
[Jonah 2:1-10]
Can you give thanks to God in times of sufferings?
I think about Jonah's prayer. Jonah eventually prayed in the stomach of the great fish in Jonah chapter 2 even though he had an opportunity to do so when he was disobeying the command of God, running away to the opposite direction of Nineveh where God wanted him to go and cry against it, and the ship that aboard was about to break up and when all the Gentile sailors were crying out to their own gods. In such a hopeless circumstance that is in the stomach of the great fish Jonah surprisingly offered a prayer of thanksgiving instead of complaining. How can we know this? When we look at the Hebrew word of “prayed” in Jonah 2:1, it was used to express thanksgiving in 1 Samuel 2:1 and 2 Samuel 7:27. So, I would like to think of two things from Jonah 2:1-10 under the title “Jonah’s God (5)”: (1) How was Jonah able to give thanks to God? (2) What was Jonah's response to the God of salvation? I hope and pray that we may enjoy the grace of God while meditating on these two things.
First, how was Jonah able to give thanks to God?
Jonah was able to give thanks to God because he experienced the God of salvation. Look at Jonah 2:9 – “… Salvation is from the LORD.” When Jonah was offering this prayer to God, he was still in the stomach of the great fish. And he was crying out to God in his sufferings. He determined to look toward God again and to pray to him in the feeling that he had been expelled from the sight of God. We can think of two things in Jonah's prayer:
(1) Jonah's prayer can be said to be a prayer to God on the basis of past salvation.
Look at Jonah 1:17 – “And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.” God prepared a great fish to save Jonah, who had been thrown to the sea. Jonah remembered this past salvation and offered the prayer of thanksgiving to God in the stomach of the great fish.
(2) Jonah's prayer is a prayer to God with the assurance of future salvation.
Look at Jonah 2:2 – “and he said, "I called out of my distress to the LORD, And He answered me I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice.” Being already experienced God’s salvation through the great fish when Jonah was thrown into the sea, Jonah believed that God would save him from the stomach of the great fish, like the stomach of Sheol, as well so this is what he confessed in Jonah 2:2. This confession of Jonah’s prayer was based on his trust in God's faithfulness. Jonah, who was saved by God before in Jonah 1:17, had conviction that God would save him again from the stomach of the great fish so that God would fulfill his sovereign will through such disobedient servant like Jonah. Considering the Prophet Jonah’s conviction of God’s salvation, Apostle Paul’s firm hope of 2 Corinthians 1:10 came into my mind: “He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.”
Then where did God save Jonah? God saved him from the stomach of the great fish. How does today's text specifically describe this fact? In Jonah 2:1-2 describes the Jonah’s situation by connecting three occurrences of the Hebrew word "min" (from): (a) "From inside the fish" (v. 1), (2) "In (from) my distress" (v. 2), (3) "From the depths of the grave" (v. 2). These three phrases describe one situation. The situation is that Jonah in the stomach of the great fish. Look at these two phrases in verses 3 and 6: "the deep, the very heart of the seas" (v. 3) and "the roots of the mountains, the pit" (v. 6). The deeper the "pit" is (v.6), the hotter the petition for God will be, and the experience of salvation as a prayer answer will be even more amazing than the shallow pit. Jonah met his savior God, who can make everything possible in his impossible situation. The lesson that this gives us is that we can experience God more deeply in the impossible situation like Jonah’s situation that is in the stomach of the great fish,
Listen to the three testimonies of salvation from the dead that appears in the Book of Jonah: (a) The first is the sailors’ testimony of the salvation. God saved the sailors from the life and death situation where the ship was about to break up due to the stormy sea by making them to throw Jonah into the sea (Jonah ch. 1). (b) The second is the testimony of Jonah's salvation in Jonah chapter 2. Look at Jonah 2:9 – “Salvation is from the LORD.” (c) Finally, the Ninevites’ testimony of salvation from God's calamity. We will see this in Jonah chapter 3. When I think about these three testimonies of salvation, I think Jonah's testimony of the salvation is the key. I think that the sailors’ testimony and the Ninevites’ testimony are ultimately centered on Jonah's testimony of salvation. The salvation of the sailors refers to Jonah's salvation, and the salvation of the Ninevites is the result of Jonah's salvation. God made Jonah to believe and to confess that “Salvation is from the Lord” (2:9) so that he might go to Nineveh and eventually proclaim to the Ninevites the message of salvation that he already had experienced. In other words, Jonah proclaimed to the people of Nineveh the God of salvation whom he had met (experienced) through his experience of salvation. Jonah was able to boldly proclaim to the Ninevites the message of repentance that he repented in the stomach of the great fish and of salvation that he had experienced after he confessed “Salvation is from the Lord” (v. 9) .
Second, what was Jonah's response to the God of salvation?
It was to worship God with thanksgiving. Look at Jonah worshiping God with a song of thanksgiving: “But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving …” (v. 9). When did Jonah worship God with a song of thanksgiving? It was in the stomach of great fish from where he wasn’t saved yet. But after he was convinced that the faithful God who saved in the past would save him again in the present, he worshiped God with a song of thanksgiving. This is different from our instinct. Our instinct is we give thanks to God if God answers our prayer of salvation, not if we are in crisis like Jonah who was in the stomach of the great fish. Why then did Jonah decide to sacrifice with a voice of thanksgiving to God? The reason is because Jonah has experienced the grace of God. Look at Jonah 2:8-9: “Those who regard vain idols Forsake their faithfulness, But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving That which I have vowed I will pay Salvation is from the LORD.” Here in verse 8 we can see the transformation of Jonah. Jonah wanted the sailors to know how wrongly they were directed by their false idols. Jonah knew that idols could deceive those who worship them, whether they have the charm of attracting their hearts or not, because their idols are empty shells and the idols have no life (Baldwin) [Word study (v. 8): Idolaters is described in two Hebrew words: (1) ‘Hebell’: Breath that evaporates quickly; (2) ‘Sseo’: emptiness, void]. But in contrast to idolaters, Jonah sacrificed to God with a voice of thanksgiving (v. 9). Why? It was because Jonah kept the grace of God in his heart [Word study (v. 9): ‘God worshipers’ is described in one word: “grace”. This word means ‘faithful love’, ’mercy’, and ‘lovingkindness’. In Hebrew, it is ‘hesed’ and it means God’s covenant love]. Here, Jonah looked back at the past before he came in the stomach of the great fish, which he had forsaken God’s covenant love in disobeying God’s command. As he was doing so, not only that he confessed that his life was empty, vain and void like breath but also pointed out the sins of idolatry of his own people, the Israelites (Hos. 4:12; Am. 5:26). Eventually, Jonah experienced the presence of God through prayer (Jonah 2:7) in the great fish, looking again toward God’s temple (v. 4). As a result, he had come to see the foolish sin that he followed falsehood and vanity, and had come to experience the faithful love of God. This is the biblical principle. In other words, those who receive the grace of God are obliged to worship God in a song of thanksgiving. We see an interesting contrast when we see Jonah giving thanks to God. When we look at Jonah 1:16, the sailors first offered sacrifices to the God of Jonah. What was their motive? It was the fear of Jonah’s God, “God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land” (1:9). Here, the fear of the sailors is different from the ‘fear’ that Jonah had in 1:9. The sailors offered a sacrifice to God in fear (v. 16). However, Jonah experienced the grace of God, and offered sacrifice (worship) as a song of thanksgiving, rather than afraid of God in fear.
One day a sister of a member of the short-term mission team gave me a prayer note. In that prayer note, there were five prayer requests. And two of the five prayer topics were about her future: ‘Pray for me so that I may give all my future worries and anxieties to God’ and ‘Pray for me that God may open the way for the future’. I also have a prayer topic for the future. I am sure many of you have a prayer topic for your future as well. However, 1 Corinthians 1:26, which I meditated on before and was the precious challenge to me, I want to share with you too: “For consider your calling ….” There is a lesson to be learned here. We, who have more future than the past, need to stop once in the midst of rushing toward the dreams, visions and goals of the future and look back on the past. We must think about the moment when we first believed in Jesus, when we were filled with joy of salvation, when we became God’s children by forgiving such sinners like us who had no choice but to die forever. When we consider the standards of man, we were foolish, weak, and despised (1 Cor. 1:26-27). But God saved us and brought us thus far. This is totally God’s grace. Thus, we must give thanks, praise, and worship God.